Header comparison RB, Maruha, Maxim
 

The Maxim was a a pretty header, very nicely made. The Maruha VP was even more gorgeous and beautifully crafted. Unfortunately, they made no more power than the somewhat pedestrian but still well made Racing Beat. In both cases, we baselined the RB, swapped the other header on a hour later and ran the exact same tune. We didn't have bot the JDM (yo) headers here to run all three on the same day but the results clearly indicate they all make the same peak, The RB in both cases making more torque below the torque peak.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...44904ac534.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2cb18c835f.jpg

Oh yeah, we have a (very) lightly used NA chassis Maruha VP for sale. $1100 shipped
Requires NA6 test pipe or cat.

I'd be interested to see a little spark tuning on each header. Probably more work than you wanna do, but we found some interesting results with some intake testing recently.

DIY intake with a 180* coupler and a bit of aluminum pipe had a 7* dead zone where it made the same hp/tq.

asmasm's 3D modeled intake ended up gaining a little under 10hp and 10ft/lbs over the other intake, all on a 1.6.

We'll hopefully get to repeat this test on a VVT soon, but I'm wondering if the headers might behave similar. ie, some breath better, and can therefore make use of a little extra advance.

Actually the maruha wasn't breathing as well, ran richer and I had to milk it with a little bit of timing to even match the RB. I also play around with the intake cam advance. Map for map of the Racing Beat was better.

I could spend 3 hours with the Maruha and Maxim and find 2-3 more horsepower but I did not do that with the race and beat so that would be sort of pointless. At the end of the day I am the one doing the dyno tuning, based on my experience with these cars, I know what's making power and what's not.

Yes intake pipe length is important and that was baselined. Change cams/RPM range significantly and the intake pipe has to chang. As long as you are running the same cams the RPM range is dictated by that not the header design. This is something we confirmed a while back.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing the results. Now we know the extra money gets you mainly Internet points.
Got a cheap OBX/Raceland header lying around? Would love to see how the cheapies compare.

Exactly what I wanted to know.

As oregonmon said, I'd love to see a stock comparison and an OBX header run. Or if you've done both, maybe just let us know what the results were? I've heard conflicting reports that on a stock engine, replacing the stock header isn't worth loosing the stock heat shield.

I have invested in ebay headers twice. In both cases, the part that arrived was so grimly poor that I didn't bother to install it on a car. Toothpaste welds, mismatched ports, wildly unequal runner lengths, pointy tube joints, crap collector designs, and on. I don't see the value. It's $250 more for a real header that is going to make the best power possible.

Hmmm. Even better reason to see how that effects it's performance.

Or, all the more reason to dump in the trash. Let us know what your dyno results are if you decide to take the time to do controlled A/B testing between an ebay header and something like an RB.

Hey Emilio, is there some place else we can see the dyno graphs? Its not showing up on this thread for me.

. . . and last a long, long time.

BTW, ceramic coat that RB header to keep heat out of the bay and win at life. PO of my red car did that, stuff is amazing.

We do on every car in the shop.

edit:

fixed

Thanks for taking the time to test this and share with the community.

Now all thats missing from the test is RB + special sauce

SPD but yeah, you guessed the next test on our agenda.

Sounds like your just trying to sell product. If there was little difference between high quality parts and the RB header. Then I'll assume that the eBay headers will be just as close untill results are shown.

you guys have SPD down there too? there's one 10 min from my house, I thought they were really small.

pretty cool lol

Me, trying to sell Miata parts. Busted.

If you are so passionate, put your money where your mouth is. Buy an ebay and RB, dyno test them with some reasonable control so we can see the results. Why don't you do that? You seem to be very very passionate about it. Do you have a reason why you don't do that?

I suppose I could write a long dissertation on header design and fabrication. If you know what you are looking at you can see that the RB is made properly. It's a simple design that does not require labor intensive fabrication techniques but they use very high quality materials. Even the Maruha does not use an investment cast stainless flanges. That is a very expensive to tool, indestructible, dimensionally stable and high precision piece.

All of the ebay headers have huge mis-matches from head pipes to flange. Even .020 can knock 6 horsepower off and I have seen 60 and 80 thousandths with gaps I can drop a quarter into. Serious comedy. You may notice the good headers have long continuous multiple bends with no joints anywhere where flow is critical. The cheap headers do not. The ebay stuff is built by factories that have no automotive R&D capability whatsoever. They are made up of many segments and they pay no attention to where they put those joints. They are not argon (back) purged and ground welds so all that splurge is inside the tubes. Cheap filler rod that rusts. Merge collectors that are way too short.. and so on

Those don't know with a proper header looks like just see shiny stainless and think it's all the same. You don't need me to validate your purchase as you have already done so for yourself. We simply choose to use good stuff on our cars and recommend good stuff to our friends and customers.

Just have to say... thanks for the thread Emilio.
Looks like everywhere is out of stock, including RB.

How dare you encourage the purchasing of Miata parts... everyone seems to want them now!

Just one note on RB, many probably have the same experience.
Mine is now close to 10 years old, and have been used without any flex tube at all during that time and have probably seen about 80 race hours (some do this in one year).
I have lately noticed hairline cracks around the collector, but the rhomboid shaped reinforcements are placed just right.

The reports of cracked, hard to fit, distorted ebay headers are not few, and sometimes just after a few hours of use (the sound of cracked primaries at track is not uncommon).
I have had my eyes set on a Staal header designed just for my intake, cams and rpm, but the RB is not the limiting factor, yet, if ever (200+whp maybe).

If I would do anything I'd replace the end flange with a Vband, to add some ground clearance (mine have been scraped a lot).